"History, Analysis and Performance Considerations of Gerald Finzi's ...

35Harmony then, falls among every other aspect of Finzi’s work that attests to his lyrical muse andlinear mode of operations. As words were the poetic impulse for an intuitive Finzi melody, soalso was a Finzi melody the poetic gesture from which his harmonies naturally sprang.If Finzi is to be criticized at all on his methodologies, it must simply be that, if we are totake his colleagues at their word, he may not have always set out from the beginning with theend squarely in mind. In Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice, the voices flow most lyrically and naturallyupon a thematic statement or within a short musical section, but the work as a whole isunashamedly stanzaic in matching the Crashaw texts, and heard as a collection of beautiful butshort antecedent and consequent pairs connected by smooth harmonic and melodic transitions (inshort, a song of songs). Ferguson described Finzi’s nine-stanza setting of Wadsworth’s,Intimations of Immortality as similar in construction:I think he was a very great song writer. I think much more that than a choralwriter—it was much more natural to him. Partly because that is his typical lengthof music . . . . All the sections [of Intimations] are very moving, but I get thefeeling that it tends to go up and down (into a shorter climax and then downagain, and another short climax and then down again). I think that’s why he wrotevery few full scale instrumental works because he didn’t think of a large scale.But he was a very natural songwriter. 56Structural divisiveness aside, the completed analysis of Lo, the Full Final Sacrifice willreveal a clear palindrome-arch, indicating that Finzi did indeed consider the larger form in thecomposition or at least arrangement of the anthem’s stanazs (this evidenced most distinctly bythe opening and concluding usage of the “Sacrifice” theme). Thought it is uncertain to whatextent Finzi’s underlying harmonic movement was conscious or intuitive, Shenkerian-typereductions are helpful in this regard as in so mapping the work, 1) thematic statements aresimplified and underlying structural similarities revealed, 2) the connecting melodic and56 Crutchfield, 169.